DAYTONA Sports Car Upgrades/improvements

[SydneyChris]

Two cents worth as a design engineer... Id repeat what Mike said.. under drive the PS pump, there is little assistance required at speed, use a synthetic fluid (I had heard one P Brock used a Mobil fork lift trans fluid on a Monaro he raced in Targa) and add a cooler or even a simple cooling loop of exposed / finned alloy tube to increase the volume of fluid in the system all of which will support heat dissipation.

[Towmaster]

Originally Posted by SydneyChris

Two cents worth as a design engineer... Id repeat what Mike said.. under drive the PS pump, there is little assistance required at speed, use a synthetic fluid (I had heard one P Brock used a Mobil fork lift trans fluid on a Monaro he raced in Targa) and add a cooler or even a simple cooling loop of exposed / finned alloy tube to increase the volume of fluid in the system all of which will support heat dissipation.

My 2c as an average Joe (not having a go at anyone)....
Yep I agree, in theory, the underdriven balancer (mine is only 12%), a large (heavy) transmission cooler and Prolube AG Trans (hydraulic) fluid should work, and may work in other cars, but didn't work in mine. It would still blow transmission fluid out of the small breather hole in the cap. Mine was only spinning to 6,200rpm so not really high revs. Could be the fact the cooler didn't get much airflow in the engine bay. I did have ducting running to it..

I spoke to a power steering specialist in Brendale (Brisbane) and he said yep the VE commodore etc power steering pumps are not much chop, they all have the same problem if they are sustaining high(er) revs.

Some of the earlier LS1 pumps you can replace with a Saginaw (speedway) pump and they will work all day without a problem but they won't fit on a VE or later car because of the different pulley offset.

He offered me a race electric unit that was about $1,000 but I thought I would try the Astra power steer solution first.

Having said that..... Geoff Taunton runs a VE type power steering pump in his Cobra and his engine (LS3) runs to nearly 8,000rpm and I don't think he had problems with it.... I do think he had a pretty big trans cooler across the front of the car.

The first time I took the car to the 2 days of thunder event up here a lot of the improved production Commodore guys were asking me if I had problems with the power steering..... After that weekend a lot of them changed over to the Astra setup. Next 2 days of thunder a year later...... 90% of the LS engine cars were running the Astra pump lol.

Theo you got a great deal, I even paid $165 for my 'spare' one....

[Modena]

Originally Posted by Towmaster

My 2c as an average Joe (not having a go at anyone)....
Yep I agree, in theory, the underdriven balancer (mine is only 12%), a large (heavy) transmission cooler and Prolube AG Trans (hydraulic) fluid should work, and may work in other cars, but didn't work in mine. It would still blow transmission fluid out of the small breather hole in the cap. Mine was only spinning to 6,200rpm so not really high revs. Could be the fact the cooler didn't get much airflow in the engine bay. I did have ducting running to it..

I spoke to a power steering specialist in Brendale (Brisbane) and he said yep the VE commodore etc power steering pumps are not much chop, they all have the same problem if they are sustaining high(er) revs.

Some of the earlier LS1 pumps you can replace with a Saginaw (speedway) pump and they will work all day without a problem but they won't fit on a VE or later car because of the different pulley offset.

He offered me a race electric unit that was about $1,000 but I thought I would try the Astra power steer solution first.

Having said that..... Geoff Taunton runs a VE type power steering pump in his Cobra and his engine (LS3) runs to nearly 8,000rpm and I don't think he had problems with it.... I do think he had a pretty big trans cooler across the front of the car.

The first time I took the car to the 2 days of thunder event up here a lot of the improved production Commodore guys were asking me if I had problems with the power steering..... After that weekend a lot of them changed over to the Astra setup. Next 2 days of thunder a year later...... 90% of the LS engine cars were running the Astra pump lol.

Theo you got a great deal, I even paid $165 for my 'spare' one....

It has a lot to do with the weight of the car. In my old VX SS the power steering would overfow on the track until I added a cooler. In the Cobra it has more power, I go faster, but have no cooler and have no issues so far.